The education plans laid out by every Republican gubernatorial candidate would devastate Michigan teachers, parents, and especially students.
Tudor Dixon, Garrett Soldano, and Kevin Rinke committed to gutting public schools with reckless cuts, all supporting a plan that would slash $3.5 billion from public education.
Rinke and Dixon backed a scheme to dismantle public schools with funding cuts of up to $500 million annually, while turning private schools into corporate tax havens. Dixon supports rewriting our state’s constitution to accomplish her funding cuts, and she wants to divide Michiganders and pass legislation for issues that don’t exist in Michigan schools just to change the conversation.
By contrast, no governor in decades has done more for Michigan students, teachers, and parents than Gretchen Whitmer. She made the largest investment in K-12 education in Michigan history – without raising taxes. She has tripled the number of reading coaches, helped reduce class sizes, and closed the school funding gap.
In the new bipartisan budget, Whitmer secured the highest per-pupil state funding in Michigan history – $9,150 for every kid, in every district. She negotiated resources to recruit more teachers, increase mental health care and school safety initiatives, improve school facilities, and expand before and after-school programming as well as free tutoring.
