Congratulations Gov. Whitmer. Great work.
There’s been this presidential buzz around Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and she briefly said that she wasn’t running before suggesting she might run, but the obvious question is on what track record.
Michigan is 43rd in the US News and World Report rankings. At this point, we’d need to add more states for Michigan to perform better. Crime is high, Detroit is still a hole in the ground, Dearborn is the epicenter of regional corruption and terrorism, and the education system is one of the worst in the country.
These are numbers Baltimore wouldn’t envy.
75% of fourth graders are not proficient in reading, and 76% of eighth graders are not proficient in math, according to the report… When Whitmer took office in 2019, those metrics were… 68%, and 69%, respectively…
3 out of 4 fourth graders aren’t reading at grade level. That is beyond inexcusable.
Last year, “more than 60% of Michigan third graders, and nearly 58% of fourth graders, failed the 2025 state reading test.”
And that’s after spending a ton of money.
During the next decade, Michigan beefed up staffing, increased free early childhood education and opened its cafeterias for free breakfast and lunch — efforts predicted to improve learning. By the end of 10 years, Michigan boosted classroom funding by an inflation-adjusted $2.1 billion, the ninth-largest hike among all states.
School funding is up 10%, after adjusting for inflation, in the past decade, even as enrollment dropped 8%, from 1.49 million to 1.37 million.
Staffing is up 14%, too, buoyed in part by a surge of federal COVID-19 spending. Districts in 2024-25 employed 3,950 more teachers than in 2015, as well as 22,142 more aides, up 29.2%.