Mayor Duggan: We Need a Central Vision for Education and to Stop Changing the Rules After Each Election

This 2025 Mackinac Policy Conference session was crafted in partnership with Crain’s Content Studio. 

• Fourth-grade reading levels in Michigan have steadily declined for more than 25 years.
• Michigan allocates $40 million to CTE programs, and 41% of districts are “CTE deserts”.
• Duggan’s proposed five-year, $4.5-billion turnaround plan for education would include accountability for school leaders.

Inconsistencies in Education Are Hurting the State

A bad system hurts good people, and Michigan’s focus on partisan politics has led to a decline in the state’s education system, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Independent candidate for Governor said.

“Sixty percent of Michigan’s fourth graders are not reading at grade level – we’re 44th in America for 8-year-olds in reading,” he said. “This isn’t something that happened in the last few years. This has been going on since 1998, more than 25 years.”

Other states – including Indiana, Mississippi and Ohio – have improved their literacy rankings in recent years, and Louisiana jumped from 47th in the nation in 2014 to 15th in 2024.

“And so I said, ‘OK. What is the problem?’” he said. “Are our students and teachers and principals that much worse than the rest of America? Or are they trapped in a bad system?”

Duggan said an “us vs. them” mentality in Lansing has led to continuous changes in the way educators are teaching children.

“Every time Republicans and Democrats flip, they change the rules,” he said. “You are a teacher in a classroom, you are a principal or a school superintendent – how do you operate in this system? Because the problem with this closely divided legislature is this stuff keeps changing back and forth. There’s no central vision that says here’s what we’re going to do for our kids.”

A Five-year Nonpartisan Plan for Accountability

Duggan proposed increasing the current $21-billion school aid budget by $900 million per year – launching a $4.5-billion five-year plan that would include developing early reading initiatives and rebuilding CTE programs.

“I want to increase the school budget without raising taxes,” he said. “There’s nothing partisan about this. This is something both sides could agree on.”

The reading programs would include literacy training for teachers, student tutoring, and summer reading programs. CTE programs also would gain considerable funding.

“I’m going to double the CTE funding,” Duggan said. “We need 47,000 positions in skilled trades by 2028. Everyone here knows this. Why are we not as a state saying we’re going to fix it?”

He said 41% of Michigan school districts are “CTE deserts.” Indiana allocates $168 million annually to CTE programs, while Michigan only has budgeted $40 million.

Duggan explained that the state’s lack of skilled trades is not related to talent or lack thereof.

“We have no skilled trades because our system is keeping (talented people) away from good life choices.”

He also would double the number of school counselors. Michigan has a student-to-school counselor ratio of 600:1 – the second worst ratio in the United States.

Consequences for School Leadership

Duggan also proposed establishing consequences for school leaders. He proposed a five-year accountability timeline for schools that receive failing grades.

Schools that receive a failing grade in the first year would have to develop an improvement plan, and if in the second year the school continues to fail, the principal would receive a support team for the plan.

“But in the third year, if you are still failing, you’re fired,” Duggan said. “If you were in business and your business declined three years in a row, you either get rid of the leader or you go out of business. I know it sounds harsh, but if you’re going to put $4.5 billion in, let’s hold them accountable.”

By year four, a new leadership team would be put into place, and if there is no improvement by the fifth year, the district superintendent or charter system administrator would be removed.

“Let’s hold the people accountable for doing this,” he said. “It is very simple: Are we protecting the 6, 7, 8 and 9-year-olds studying for the future, or are we protecting the adults in the system?”