Educating our children is one of the most important functions of state government. Consequently, the largest budget in state government is the K-12 budget. It is currently $13.4 billion, up from $12.3 in 2004. Local school property tax revenues supplement the state dollars with another $6.3 billion (according to 2007 numbers). Every dollar spent on education is an important dollar that needs to be spent effectively.

Our education funding is not being spent effectively enough. Michigan needs to make sure that more money gets to our children in the classroom and less money goes into the bureaucracy.

The public school system has been a key piece of the American success story. At the same time, we must recognize that not all public school districts are equal, and further, we must recognize that funding levels are not the only reason for disparities in educational achievement. A compelling example of the need for alternatives is the Detroit Public Schools.

State law limits the number of university-sponsered charter schools to 150. To provide more choices and more opportunities to our schoolchildren, we should remove the cap. Competition is the American way. Charter schools only threaten those schools that are not educating children. The traditional public school is the choice of most parents and students. But for those who live, by virtue of geography or the size of their pocketbook, in a failing school district -- let's provide an alternative to get ahead in the 21st century.

Mike Cox supports merit pay to reward our best teachers. Merit pay based on criteria that include teacher and student performance is an important tool in incentivizing teaching and, more importantly, increasing student performance. Merit pay is a way to positively push teachers and principals to better our schools. It is also useful for recruiting and focusing academic achievement. For instance, American students are falling behind Chinese and South Asian students especially in math and science. As a response, a school district may decide to pay merit pay - or increase merit pay - to teachers who teach classes like advanced calculus or physics in order to recruit and retain competent teachers in demanding subject areas. Merit pay will not only benefit our teachers, but our students and families because of the positive results it will bring.

As Governor, Mike Cox will tie funding of education to increased accountability and transparency. Any public entity that receives state funding must show how they spend the taxpayers' money. The School Aid Fund gives billions of taxpayer dollars to school districts; these districts will have to post their spending online to freely show taxpayers how that money is spent.

The goal of any school funding plan is to get as many dollars into the classroom as possible. State law should encourage school districts to combine services and/or physical borders by providing additional state aid to local districts working to lower costs-- sharing busing, food services, administrative functions, etc. This is not a new concept but one that hasn't been effectively used in the past. Where state law places hurdles in front of efforts to work together, changes in those laws need to be vigorously pursued.

Parents want to know how their children are performing, and taxpayers rightfully want to know that their dollars are being used wisely. Standardized testing is a useful tool to see how much our kids are learning -- to see "how we are doing" In Michigan, the Department of Education administers the Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP), assessing students in grades three through nine based on Michigan's curriculum framework. One consistent and justified complaint of teachers is the MEAP is constantly changing and is not always an adequate measure of how our children are performing. The constant change greatly impacts the lessons that our children are taught and increases the costs for every single school district in Michigan.

As Governor, Mike Cox will continue to require testing to provide parents, taxpayers, and policy makers input on how our children are doing, not only for that moment in time, but also how they are progressing individually, from year to year. Cox will study the option of using a more consistent, national measure to benchmark our children's progress. One such measure, called the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), allows parents to see not only how their kids are doing compared to their neighboring school district, but also how our children are learning compared to children in Indiana, Georgia and California. Cox will even look at using an international test such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to measure our children against children internationally. We ought to measure ourselves against the world if we want to give our children a world class education.

To compete with the rest of the world, our kids need to improve their math and science skills. As Governor, Mike Cox will create awards to recognize math and science achievement by Michigan students. Michigan should follow the example of states like Indiana that are trying to raise the profile of learning math and science by creating an award for the top math and science high school graduates that includes scholarships. In the 1950s the advent of Soviets entering space prompted America to set a goal of putting a man on the moon -- and increasing the amount of students who studied science and math. Today, we need to meet the challenge of a global economy -- let's incentivize math and science studies.

Unlike most every private sector employee -- and even most state and local employees -- teachers in Michigan still receive a defined benefit pension plan that pays each person a defined payment monthly in retirement. From 2003 to 2008, the State Legislature increased expenditures from the School Aid Fund by nearly $450 million. During that same period, school district expenses associated with teacher pensions increased by $300 million. Over two-thirds of that increase went to fund retiree pension benefits! Clearly, this is not a sustainable model. The Michigan Constitution limits the ability to change any current public sector employee's pension, in effect "grandfathering" all current school teachers. However, it is time to set up a new pension system for newly hired teachers that is a portable 401k pension similar to most Michigan taxpayers' pensions.

The first step to school funding reform will be to follow the lead of the private sector and Michigan's state employees, and shift newly hired teachers into a 401k retirement system. While this measure has upfront costs to "close" the current pension system, the long-term savings overwhelmingly outweigh the costs of doing nothing. At a minimum, this one change will save school districts at least $97 million each year.

Instead of having every school district in Michigan negotiate separate health insurance plans for their employees, Michigan should consolidate all teacher health-care into one, state-managed health insurance plan. Or alternatively, give the school districts the ability to shop more easily for cheaper health care plans. Pooling teachers' health care plans together would utilize economies of scale, benefit level consistency and administrative efficiencies to save taxpayers' money. The Hay Group report commissioned by the Governor and Legislature in 2005 outlined a plan to save over $422 million dollars every year. Only a lack of leadership accounts for this plan not being in place today.

As Speaker Dillon, Senate Republicans, and Mike Cox have pointed out before, increased pooling in the public sector - to possibly include state employees, county, and local governmental employees only increases the potential for even more dramatic savings. Mike Cox supports Speaker Dillon's proposal to pool public employees' health care, however if Speaker Dillon's current legislative efforts to create pooling for public employees proves unsuccessful, Mike Cox supports the proposal that the Hay Group provided the Legislature in 2005.

To allow for more flexibility, we can structure this larger pool with opt outs: for instance, if Oakland County uses health savings accounts (HSAs) to cover health care and the HSA plan is cheaper for Oakland, then that county will be allowed to opt out of the pool. The point is that in the public education sphere - and in the larger public sector employee sphere - Michigan has to engage in reform to get more out of taxpayer dollars.

Another idea is setting a floor for a public employee's contribution to their health care premium. For instance, mandating all teachers to contribute 15% of the health care premium would provide an alternative way to get more dollars into the classroom. The Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI) reports that schools spent just under $2 billion in Fiscal Year 2007 on employee health insurance. A 15% reduction in that spending equals about $300 million

In 2003, Governor Granholm and the Legislature changed Michigan law from the traditional requirement that all K12 students receive at least 180 days of instruction to 1,098 hours of instruction requirement. The Center for Michigan reports that 98% of the school districts now fail to meet the hours of instruction requirement; in fact, the average high school is 1,066 hours or one week less than required. It is important to note that most industrialized nations have more school days than Michigan, for instance, Japan requires 220 days and Korea requires 225 days of instruction.
We cannot let our children fall behind.